Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Oppressive policing provoked riots

HEAVY handed policing and the use of the stop-and-search
laws – reintroduced under the Blair government as an anti-terrorism measure –
against young black people fuelled much of the anger and rioting that flared
suddenly last August.

This was the conclusion
of a lengthy study by the London School of Economics and the Guardian newspaper
that interviewed 270 rioters.

Of those interviewed,
85 per cent cited anger at policing practices as a key factor in why the
violence happened.

Many cited repeatedly
being stopped and searched whenever they went outside their homes, seeing close
friends and relatives treated with brutality and groups being rounded up who
just happened to be in the same place but did not know each other and being
treated as a gang.

The complaints were
remarkably similar from rioters all around Britain
– and very similar to those made 30 years ago to the Scarman inquiry into the
Brixton riots of the early 1980s: police taking advantage of their powers to
make life hell for people they just did not like – mainly because they were
black.

The Association of
Chief Police Officers said it was not surprised such a study saw police cited
as a factor. “But August also showed the ability of our police to restore order
using robust, common sense policing in the British way," it said.

The former
Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Ian Blair and a Tory spokesperson made similar
comments on the BBC’s Newsnight programme
during a discussion of the report.

They were saying the
reason why these rioters hated the police is because criminals always hate the
police – completely missing the point that it is their approach that is
criminalising a whole community.

One measure
particularly irked many of the rioters. Previously police who stopped and
searched youths were obliged to give them a written note with an account of
what had happened and details of how and where to complain about inappropriate
treatment.

The Con-Dem Coalition
has done away with this as part of its “war on red tape”. But it leaves police
unaccountable for the way they pick on people to stop and search and their
victims with no redress.

The riots began on
Tottenham two days after the police shot and killed Mark Duggan, a young black
man, who turned out to be unarmed, contrary to police claims.

His family and
friends staged a small demonstration to the police station, demanding to speak
with senior officers for an explanation. The police ignored them for three
hours until anger boiled over and the rioting began with the burning of a
police car.

One rioter was on
holiday when he heard about the riots but returned to take part. He said: “As
soon as I saw that, I was happy, like. For some reason I just wanted to be
there. I actually wanted to burn the cars," he said.

"What I've been
through my whole life, police have caused hell for me... now was my opportunity
to get revenge."

Interviewed on the BBC's
Newsnight, he said the Government had made it hard to get jobs, cut people's
benefits, and made university unaffordable.

"We thought,
'Okay, you want to financially hurt us?' We'll financially hurt you by burning
down buildings. "That was the best three days of my life."

Meanwhile former Met
Police Chief Lord Stevens has said he believes public disorder will be one of
the major problems facing police over the next 18 months.

Launching a
commission into policing in England
and Wales set
up by Labour, he said his feeling was that the coming months would be
"very difficult".

He said he was
worried about unemployment and rising crime – police would have to be
"match fit" to cope.

Crossbencher Lord
Stevens also stressed the commission would be non-political.